Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. – Albert Einstein

Terrebonne resident digs for Native American roots

Coni Dubois poses at the site of a Manissean Indian village in Block Island, RI.

“He knew he was Native American, but back then it was a voodoo to talk about that kind of stuff,” said Dubois, who lives in Gray. “He asked me, ‘Please, find our Native American roots.’ ”

Allen’s father died in September, before she could finish her search. But his death spurred her to delve even deeper into her family’s history and discover a connection to Native American tribes in the northeastern United States. “It’s the first story of American history,” Dubois said.

Dubois said she’s traced more than 17,000 people through her family tree on both her mother and father’s sides. She traced her heritage back to the Algonquian Indians, including the Mohegan, Pequot and Narragansett tribes. She also discovered a connection to the Long Island Indians.

Dubois returned from a summer genealogy research trip this past week. She visited archaeology digs at sites connected to her ancestors, including the place that hosted King Philip’s War, a battle between Native Americans and settlers. She also viewed recently unearthed artifacts from the Pequot Massacre.

“To walk those lands that my ancestors did — I cry at every one of those sites,” Dubois said.

She visited the site of a Manissean Village in Block Island, R.I., where she was involved in a ceremony that dedicated a stone marking the site.

She also went to Barkhamsted Lighthouse in Connecticut, a village founded by James Chaugham, a Narragansett Indian and his wife, Molly, a white woman, and a new dig at a soapstone quarry where tools believed to date back 3,000 years were discovered, Dubois said.

She was shown those sites by archaeologists who admired her genealogy research, she said.

Dubois said she traced her Native American lineage to Kukkineau, or Cockenoe, an Algonquian Indian who was captured by the British in the 1600s. He helped John Eliot, an English missionary working among the Native Americans of Massecusetts, to translate the Bible into the Algonquian language.

Dubois said she got to see a copy of the Eliot Bible, the first complete Bible printed in the United States, at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.

She was also invited by the Wiquapaug Pequot tribe to view and record some of their ritual dances.

Dubois said she is amazed every time she delves into her history and realizes that her family survived wars and disease.

“It took all of these generations to make me, but here I am today,” she said.

Dubois said Ancestory.com is the best place to start genealogy research because you can access thousands of records and other genealogists’ work through the site.

If you want to get serious about building a family tree, Dubois suggested buying Ancestory.com’s family tree software. She said it is the best she’s used.

The Terrebonne Parish Library has a subscription to Ancestory.com’s library edition, and you can use the site for free from any library computer or on your laptop through the library’s wireless connection.

For those with roots in Terrebonne and Lafourche, the library has civil and ecclesial records that you can use to track your family through time, said Judith Soniat, associate reference librarian for the Terrebonne Parish Main Library.

Soniat said about a half-dozen people can be found at the library doing research on any given day, and the library offers semi-regular classes on how to get started.

“It’s about the quest,” Soniat said. “For many people, it’s not just about who the ancestors are. It’s the fun of the search.”

Dubois said her quest is one she plans to continue. She’s heading to Long Island in October for another round of research.

“I’m not done, I’m just starting,” she said. “I’m learning the stories of my ancestors.”

Dubois details her research on her blog, conidubois.wordpress.com.

Staff Writer Nikki Buskey can be reached at 857-2205 or nicole.buskey@houmatoday.com.

In the Daily Comet 6/25/11 : http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20110725/ARTICLES/110729699/1212?p=3&tc=pg

Also in Houma Courier 6/25/11: http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20110725/ARTICLES/110729699/1211?Title=Terrebonne-resident-digs-for-Native-American-roots

Sunday, July 17, 2011 – 9:45 AM

• Westerly (Rhode Island) and its witnesses: for two hundred and fifty years, 1626-1876 : including Charlestown, Hopkinton, and Richmond until their separate organization, with the principal points of their subsequent history (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=oNAaMBIFWtcC&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• A history of New England: containing historical and descriptive sketches of the counties,cities and principal towns of the six New England states, including, in its list of contributors, more than sixty literary men and women, representing every county in New England (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=8sRWAAAAMAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Indian dictionary, English, German, Iroquois – the Onondaga and Algonquin – the Delaware (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=UBkOAAAAIAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Algonquin Indian Tales  (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=9Fsn3Bt1fysC&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
•  Memoir of Eliot: apostle to the North American Indians (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=kWNAAAAAYAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Life of John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians (Google eBook):  http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=PNU5AAAAcAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• The New England Company of 1649 and John Eliot:The ledger for the years 1650-1660 and the record book of meetings between 1656 and 1686 of the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England (Google eBook):http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=XMMGAAAAMAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Oyster Bay town records, Volume 1 (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=afETAAAAYAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Oyster Bay town records 1653-1878: http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=Pj6YNz-MdvEC&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=webstore_bookcard
• Early Long Island: a colonial study (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=8YV8kAhwjQYC&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association – Volume 6 (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=i9sTAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=webstore_bookcard
• Memoirs of a captivity among the Indians of North America: from childhood to the age of nineteen: with anecdotes descriptive of their manners and customs (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=Y1tXVZ5epgwC&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• A history of the Pequot War: or a relation of the war between the powerful nation of Pequot Indians,  once inhabiting the coast of New-England, westerly from near Narragansett Bay and the English inhabitants, in the year 1638 (Google eBook): http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=KttlnkyxvTEC&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader
• Indian paths in the great Metropolis (Google eBook):  http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=2O-FAAAAIAAJ&num=10&printsec=frontcover&output=reader

Barkhamsted Lighthouse Village

I’ve decided on what I’m gonna read at the Block Island Event – The Archaeologist and Historian has asked me to read something so – I’m using one that has always been dear to my heart – It seems fitting for a dedication for the Native American’s on the Island – My Ancestors~
“The Chosen”

We are the chosen – In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors.
To put flesh on their bones and make them live again – To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts – but instead – breathing life into all who have gone before.
We are the story tellers of the tribe – All tribes have one – We have been called, as it were, by our genes.
Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. – So, we do – In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count.
How many times have I told the ancestors, “You have a wonderful family – you would be proud of us.”.
How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts – It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do.
It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying – I can’t let this happen.
The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh – It goes to doing something about it.
It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish – How they contributed to what we are today.
It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up – their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family – It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation – It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us – It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth – without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach – That we might be born who we are – That we might remember them – So we do – With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence – because we are they and they are the sum of who we are.
So, as a scribe called – I tell the story of my family.
It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family genealogy – and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before.”
by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn

Hi Coni…

  I am having it embroidered on “baseball” type caps that are yellow like the stripe on the bird’s wing.

 Sher

Had a WONDERFUL talk with Ken Feder Archeologist of the Barkhamsted Lighthouse Village today – He has offered to come 1 day during our Barkhamsted Camping Trip and give those of us camping a private tour of the site and other area’s of Ragged Mountain!!

I was able to talk to him for a bit and he has been super busy – so caught up on what’s been going on~

He did tell me that the new signs will be installed on Ragged Mountain for the camping trip so we will be one of the 1st to view them – I’m so excited – can’t wait to see them~

Sheryl Robinson has been one of my greatest treasures in Genealogy – She and I have worked together for a couple of years on the Chagum/Barber lineage – Her husband is a distant cousin to me and descendant of this line also – I’ve been trying to find another of my lines graves sites Thomas & Mercy Keeney – 5 x G Grandparents to me – and Sheryl is involved with the Riverside Cemetery – AND THOMAS & MERCY are buried there along with my Parshall lineage !! She has been working to get the Riverside cemetery on the National Register and now they are!!!

Read article in the stargazette.com newspaper on the Riverside Cemetery in National Register’s sights (just click this link)

Sharing an email from Sheryl – on the discovery of Thomas and Mercy’s Graves at Riverside Cemetery in Lowman, Chemung,  New York – we had just been discussing the cemetery and such and low and behold she made this discovery in her own cemetery which she takes care of~